A butt-load spent in cables - how much improvemt?

Keep in mind that while some listeners can hear a big difference in cables, others can't. I wonder if those who can't don't have their systems set up correctly, with respect to speaker placement etc. Also, some systems are not fussy about cables...it's all sort of relative.

I once put a virtual dynamics power cord (Power 3) on my CD player and everything changed, including the bass became too strong; even my wife commented on it and she usually cannot hear any differences in upgrades. I ended up using a virtual dynamics nite power cord on the player and love it. Then one day, the cord developed an open circuit while I reconfigured it and I was forced to use the stock cord while the nite was sent back to Canada. Wow, I was back to mediocrity.

Everyone and every system is different. If you switch back to your original cables and do not notice anything, by all means sell your expensive cables and invest in more music. It's all a matter of opportunity cost...good luck and let us know how you make out.

It seems to me that cable performance is non price hierarchical but rather to do the power in you house and the way your system matches to the wire, RF rejection, etc.

Seasoned wrote (regarding audibility of cables): "I wonder if those who can't [hear] don't have their systems set up correctly...."

While there were some softening modifiers added afterwards, I think this is the type of comment we need to avoid. While not in-your-face, the clear insinuation is that if you can't hear a difference, there must be something "wrong" with your system.

There are a lot of variables that impact how a systems sounds. Your room may be plagued with RFI and mine not. You may have a poor connection at an electrical junction box buried in your wall a couple of rooms away and I may not. Your speakers may be more reactive and present a difficult load to an amp sensitive to such issues while another system is more stable in this regard.

And we haven't even got to the psychological issues yet or the fact that different people do not prioritize the importance of various audio cues in the same order.

The goal is that each of us ends up with a system within our budget that makes us happy, not the other guy. To that end I think we need to remember that our choices are nothing more than that - ours.

Good point Mlsstl - My choice is not to purchase ANY expensive cables/power cords.

I think that is a great response Mlsstl. Clean power, rf rejection, component matching etc., have so much to do with cables. You can't just stick an expensive cable in somewhere and say it sounds better because you want it to either. If people better understood and were open to dialogue on the issues of what the cables relate to in terms of current, rfi and the rest of the system, I think there would be less bad blood in the camps that argue over these things

After all, many things make little bit of difference, including what time of day you play your stereo. That doesn't make me tell people that they can't possible hear anything if they listened to something in the middle of the day on a hot afternoon though.

We all have to *try* to be reasonable!